The consortium was formed in 2006
by UC San Diego, the
Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, the Salk Institute and
the Scripps Research Institute to help speed research into stem
cells, and apply that research to disease therapies. The members
expect closer collaboration will increase the scientists' ability
to draw research dollars, which may lead to new disease therapies
and companies to commercialize them.

"There's a proximity effect, and I think that's going to
stimulate very interesting new types of collaboration," said
Mitchell Kronenberg, the La Jolla Institute's president and chief
scientific officer. Equipment at the consortium headquarters
allowing imaging inside living animals will be especially useful,
he said.

California's stem cell program, the
California Institute for Regenerative
Medicine
, has contributed $43 million to build a consortium
headquarters, scheduled to open next month. Construction of the
145,000-square-foot, $115 million headquarters was also funded with
grants from private donors, including $30 million from
businessman-turned-philanthropist T. Denny Sanford. Consortium
members get preferred access to the lab space and equipment.

Scientists in the consortium are deciding for themselves how
much of their work to transfer to the consortium headquarters.
Located at 2880 Torrey Pines Scenic Drive off North Torrey Pines
Road, the headquarters is close to all four original members,
adjacent to the Salk and across North Torrey Pines Road from
UCSD.

La Jolla Institute faculty member
Anjana Rao
, a prominent
genetics and cell biology researcher, will move part of her lab
into the new headquarters.

Kronenberg becomes a member of the consortium's 10-member board
of directors. The board is co-chaired by San Diego philanthropists
Irwin M. Jacobs, Malin Burnham, John Moores, and Sanford, who
provided the $30 million naming gift to the consortium
headquarters.

Kronenberg said the four consortium members deserve credit for
doing the hard work of getting the partnership off the ground.

"By the time we came on, it had already been stress-tested, if
you will, so we had no problems signing on to what was already
there," he said.